Women Paid Less for the Same Work that Men Do

The National Statistical Office in India recently released a report, Women and Men In India 2022, which shows that women are paid significantly less than men for similar work in both rural and urban areas. The report found that during April-June 2022, female wage rates ranged from just over half to 93.7% of male wages in rural India and from just under half to 100.8% in cities. The gender gap has widened in rural areas over the last decade, though it has narrowed in towns.

The report also shows that the gender wage gap is the widest in Kerala, where female workers in rural areas are paid only 51.5% of men’s wages. Interestingly, the three states with the highest daily wage rates for rural males, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh, also have the widest gender gap in wages, with female wages averaging less than 60% of male wages. In Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Odisha, female rural wage rates were under 70% of male workers.

The report suggests that a higher wage rate for men seems to increase the gender divide, while the divide is narrower in low-wage states. Overall, the gender gap in wages has widened in 11 of the 19 large states, with the gap increasing by more than 10 percentage points in West Bengal, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh. The report highlights the need for policies and interventions to address this persistent issue of gender inequality in wages in India.

Staff Reporter